Month: October 2016

Yesterday I was having a bit of a ‘poor me’ day, which I don’t have very often and so really did get me down. But today is a new day, and I’m thinking about everything I’ve achieved in my life. I thought I would write them down here, firstly to remind myself, and secondly so you guys could think about everything you have achieved in your life.

Cassi was infectious. She had a personality like no one I had ever met, and somehow, somewhere along the way I became addicted to her.

She had this idealist view of the world that at first I couldn’t understand, but eventually I grew to admire and love. I still remember the first time she saw me throw litter out of the car window while I was driving along. She started screaming, and I automatically slammed on the car brakes assuming something was terribly wrong. Up until that point I had never seen her angry, but it was almost like I had physically assaulted her the way she was shouting at me. Looking back, in her world, I had. When she stopped shouting she had tears in her eyes and I thought she might cry. I knew I’d never drop litter again.

After that, I started to see the world differently too. But as I became a better person, I think ‘my world’ had the opposite effect on Cassi.

Recently, I read a comment on one of my blogs. The comment mentioned how there are so many writers online; it’s like you’ll never get noticed. Honestly, I couldn’t deny the truth of those words. The longer a website or Amazon book stays online, the more content there is to compete with. In a world where writers can just post their first drafts and self-published books online, how does a new writer hope to get noticed?

Well, we already talked about marketing and going the traditional route, but what’s after that? I guess it depends on what you want to get out of writing.

Sometimes it surprises me that I almost have 500 followers on WordPress, but I wasn’t able to get noticed on Wattpad.

If you don’t have success on one website or book, try something else. The important thing is never to give up. If you keep working…

I never actually intended to write a book! At 30 years old, I was living 10,000 miles away from my friends and family, when the man I planned to marry did the unthinkable and had an affair, leaving me alone and heartbroken. I started writing as sort of therapy so that I didn’t go completely mad and I guess I just got carried away. Before I knew it I had 70,000 words! I never at any point thought ‘O I’d like to be a writer’ or ‘O I think I’ll write a book’.

On Sunday I did my first ever half marathon, raising money for homeless cats and dogs.

I had been training for four months, and on the day all my hard work paid off and I did it in 2 hours and 1 minute (so close to the bloody ‘sub 2’ mark I know!). But more importantly I really enjoyed it :). We didn’t run together, but two of my best friends ran the race too and seeing them at the finish line, along with my parents, made all the pain worth while.